The Boy That Died Thrice
by TwistedNym
Summary: (past Thomas/ Maven ,canon divergent) 'You left me. To die. And so I did. But I couldn't stay dead. Death wouldn't have me. 'Once upon a time, there was a boy called Thomas, but he died. Or did he? (I effed up and deleted it twice, this will stay as a finished story tho)
1. Bullet Bite

_'Something wasn't dead. But alive, it wasn't either.'_

* * *

The pistol is cold steel and steady, smooth against the palm of his hand. Scratches run along the pistol grip. They tell stories of fights, spilled drops of blood and soaring bullets ripping through flesh.

_The first was the hardest, oh yes, but pulling the trigger seems so easy. The face of the man is staring at him but Thomas cannot look back. He pulls the trigger again and again and AGAIN._

It sings and screams, a promise of obedience in the hand of its owner.

His crooked scarred fingers brush over it like a lover at night, caring and careful. They check it the third time in a row. They linger along the trigger and remind him of the times he pulled it.

**What's your name?** People ask.

Thomas, the ghost of a boy answers.

**Just Thomas?**

Yes. Just that. He lost the rest of himself in the pile of corpses. Somewhere along the way. There are dead eyes and whispers. Something telling him of a hand reaching out for his, of stolen glances and a laugh. It's a story belonging to another Thomas. A boy with hope and light, a boy with kindness. But it's as far as the horizon and as unattainable as catching fog with fingers.

That's all there is to the world. Guns and fog, blood and corpses. And ash.

He learned it the day they left him to bleed out. The day his breath stuttered and his heart stood still for the slightest of moments.

Ash is the snow of his world. It is the first thing the ghost remembers. Soft fluttering, caressing him like the fluttering sounds of wings. Wings like the dark ones, a flock of crows. Ash and crows. A dead plane and rotting flesh. Beaks burrowing mercilessly in faces he has known.

_Eyes wide open, blood crusted over a small freckled nose. The shining eye of a bird, a tilting head. A beak burrowing with a SMACK SMACK deep into the open eyes. Thomas watches HE WATCHES he knows he will be the next._

When you have lost your worth, the world eats you.

This knowledge still cannot stop his hand from sliding into the pocket of his coat. There's a piece of paper, resting below the beating in his chest, the place where his heart has once been.

There's a face on that piece of paper. A face the dead boy knew. It's the face of a prince. The face of a friend. The face of a...

_Stolen smile, lingering, glancing, careful, but it's there, and it MEANS something-_

_His strongest memory of **him** is fire. It burns through his skin . And then nothing more. Until he's healed and still more dead than alive, and they put him in a place where everyone knows they will die eventually. And the ash flutters like snowflakes and the crow's beak burrows in- CAW-  
_

The Ghost stares at the face and behind the fog of memory, something moves, like a sea serpent under the water, lying in waiting. Maw open, to pull him deep down. The Ghost knows what this means. He carries the picture with him for weeks. He pulls it out when no one is watching and he tries. He tries to feel, to swim in the water without getting swallowed. He tries to remember past the crows and the ash. He looks at his arms, bitten by the harsh world. He cannot do it.

It will hurt, he knows. It will take the armor, scratch off the mold the Ghost has carefully modeled for so many years.

The unbreakable boy, the boy they killed but never could diminish.

And the Ghost knows he would break.

But he cannot let that happen. Because the world will eat him if he does.

_Hands grabbing, carelessly and cold, smeared with ash. Dirty nails and black boots. The breath of a dead boy. "This one is alive!"_

_Painful hours in white light and bandages wrapped around him._

_How he flees when his feet can move again. Desertion is a crime worth death. But a ghost does not care about the petty sentence to something he cannot have and has kissed already._

_How fortunate, the Ghost thinks later, following the reports of losses on the front line as best as possible. His name on a long and meaningless list. KIA. Serving for the good of Norta. Defending._

_Means nothing. Never did._

_ _Twice death, twice alive. At first comes fire and after that comes ashes. And no one cares he is still here, and no one knows. A mere poltergeist in the attempt to rummage through the world behind the veil of numbness and betrayal._ _

With a last long breath, the hand moves away from the pocket. Not now. Maybe not ever.

The Ghost will not be eaten. He will feast himself.

Next to him, someone moves.

They have been hiding in this trench half the night. There's uncomfortable shuffling, uneasy breaths. They are nervous and tired of waiting.

The Ghost can understand. He shares the sentiment. But he will not let it make him reckless. Waiting is pulling their hair. But it will pay off in the end.

The intercepted message was clear.

With leaping force his muscles spring to life, happy to answer.

One could think these men will react swift and deadly, in time to stop the ambush. In truth, these soldiers are just as poor and unwilling as everyone. If he had not died he could be in their place now.

Which is why the Ghost does not shoot. Not immediately. Not without provocation. The gun is at the ready. But it is not pointing at people who share the same blood.

_Red blood, seeping into ash, it hurts, oh god, he cannot breathe, make it stop make it stop stop-_

The gun points blank at the silver officer. And the plan is clear. Kill the officer. Get the documents he's carrying. Run.

Documents viable enough to be carried out in this escort are worth a lot. Intel is all that matters.

The Ghost isn't arguing with the orders. It's simple.

He has a hand. He has a gun. He has hatred and strength.

The boy he once was carried orders from the other side, bending. Submitting to his fate.

There is no fate for the dead. No fate for fog. No fate for a Ghost.

If the officer was a magnetron the Ghost would be dead now. The metal would bend under his will and he would die again and nothing would make the shredded pieces of his heart beat.

But he is no metal bender, no mind controlling steel. They made sure to know what they are facing.

But that doesn't mean it's easier to kill him.

He's faster than any of them. He moves swift and silent.

The Ghost of Thomas shoots, but he misses. The echo rings through the wood and mud. The silver officer grits his teeth.

In the next moment, he's upon one of the other men. His soldiers are fighting. But without much prowess and fire. They know who they are. The silver not so much.

Another shot ringing and a blood curling gurgle.

Red blood mixing in the mid as one of the ambushers falls back into the trench. A damn shame. He was the one receiving instructions for their little cell. Someone else will take the place.

The Ghost isn't giving up easy. The man is swift but not invincible.

It takes all the strength his body has left to win this dance, but his will to survive is working in his favor.

In the end, there's still four of them and two of the soldiers.

And the officer lies in the mud himself, embroidered rich coat stained with silver blood.

They fall and bleed and die like everyone else. The color is different. But that doesn't mean their heart isn't pumping as desperate. The stopping, pondering breath, the twitching eyes, the loss of control until he fades into unconsciousness. It is familiar. Through the fog, the Ghost will always remember. Never forget. Death is a handiwork. It is a tool. And it is a destination. Few are unlucky enough to escape. Carrying on in a world they won't ever truly belong to again.

The veil is thin, and the hunters are always out for prey. And the birds will feast on the rotten carcasses.

Granted, a pile of silver bodies is nothing against the mass graves filled with red stained hands and dead eyes.

But sometimes, one dead man is all it takes.

The officer doesn't breathe anymore. Just to make sure the Ghost shoots him in the head.

The Ghost rubs his sleeve over his face, smearing bright blood and mud over the faded cloth. Both red and silver. He puts the gun away. Glistening and deadly. Familiar and safe.

_Now he ought to stay dead._

It could be a relief. He supposes other people see it a different way.

The others are staring at him. Beaten and tired, but alive. So much more alive than the Ghost, now that the fight is over and animosity and apathy are settling in again.

The way they stare it is clear what they expect with their latest leader dead. They are followers. They need instructions.

He remembers a dead boy looked for guidance as well. Faintly he knows some people are too scared and helpless. Even if they know what to do. They know but they need it. To carry on. To survive.

He is no leader.

A boy named Thomas was a follower. A servant. A friend. A son. A soldier.

The Ghost is no longer even a boy. He feels a million years old when he takes a long breath. His heart is stone and his skin is bitten by bullets. He will never be weak again.

"Search the bodies." The Ghost whispers. "And then move."

He never gave orders before. He doesn't like it. He doesn't want to care for others more than he has to. A Ghost cannot command the living without taking possession. Fog disseminates. But he's untouchable.

He stares at the face on the paper again, and the scars on his hands seem to dance when he grips it very hard.  
The Ghost wonders. A part of him longs for the absurd idea to see into those eyes, after all those years. Would there be any recognition? Surprise?  
The Ghost doesn't want to remember, cannot, but his dreams give him away.

His dreams are the want, the questions, and the fear. When he wakes up from those dreams he shakes and breaths to loud.  
A part of him is sure. If he ever sees this face again, close to him, the decision will be hard.

_Did you know it would happen? _The Ghost wants to ask. _Where they would send me? A convenient place in the front to get rid of me. Perhaps for the best after what happened. Erase the mistakes and don't look back.  
_

The Ghost wants nothing but blood. The Ghost has a knife sharp like a razor and even if he burns he will take down all who abandoned and wronged him.  
Maybe the boy behind the fog can stop him.

Maybe he doesn't.  
At the end of the day, whatever remains and is still inside of the Ghost boy named Thomas, will die. It will scorch and kindle, light up and feed the world. He's not foolish enough to believe anything he will do can change the fate of the world. He doesn't care for the fate of the world.

He cares for nothing anymore.

All that is left is scars and fog, ash and dust. A boy surviving death two times, greeted by its mellow kisses but never taken.

If he was to find out why, remember why, would that even change a thing?

With one last look, he crumples the paper. He doesn't need it to know he has lost it all.

It lands in the mud. Water soaks through ink. The face of Maven Calore turns into a pool of black water. As if that could stop the memory of scars and death and the bitter song of misery from wailing through the air. A symphony only for his ears, following him, wherever he goes.


	2. The Pulls

_'It tugs and wallows, it breaks and heals. Not even ghosts are safe from it.'_

The pull of the reality is like stones holding him underwater.

But he doesn't move. One shallow breath. Then another.

Sleeping next to him must feel like lying next to a corpse. He looks over to the wall, bleak and blank as the cold side next to him.

Sometimes company helps to stop the pull. It helps to forget.

That's all it means.

A Ghost can't love the living.

It only haunts them.

Water drips through the roof. It leaks. Droplets of ice cold water. Little sounds in the darkness. And a puddle on the ground.

Dirt, the Ghost has learned, is just a reminder that this world consists out of filth.

Every breathing creature shits and coughs and dies. That's the way of it. Some may try to hide it. But they can't hide it forever. Even if they try.

If they bleed, that is weakness.

If they laugh, that is weakness.

If they love, that is weakness.

The hole in his chest agrees, reacting to the faint memories of his dreams. The pull is strong tonight. It's because the last fight, the hiding in the trench and the picture have reminded the Ghost too much of all the losses.

He tries to forget. One breath at a time in the silence. It does not work.

_A pale face, not used to all the filth and blood . Sounds of far explosions and fights, sounds of feet moving, sounds of human strength and misery. "Have you seen many people die?"_

_A voice that once belonged to him , hoarse, trying to feign strength when there is but none left in the exhaustion._

_Daring to speak only because they are alone. Alone, alone, what a rare gem. "You get used to it soon, your Highness."_

_A lie , a lie. All a lie._

_ **You never forget.** _

"_And it is not like they will send you with the ambushes." Because he is too valuable. He is not replaceable. Not like the men's he has seen, barely alive in the dirt. __**Entrails hanging out of a gut, a face smeared with dirt but pale as sour milk.**__ "Lost a lot of good men down at the trenches, I heard."_

"_What does make a good man, Thomas?" the faint memory asks, the memory of someone willing to listen to him. "What do you think?"_

_ **And what indeed?** _

The Ghost stares into the unfolding darkness, pondering about that question.

When he turns around in the darkness, it unfolds, again, and he takes another breath before getting up. A drop of water gets caught in his hair. Another runs along his eye like a tear he doesn't cry, loses itself along his collar.

Once upon a time, a boy named Thomas would have said a good man is made of care and kindness. A good man looks after the ones needing him. And a good man fights for them.

But now, the Ghost knows, that this does not mean anything.

Because all good men die early.

All good men lose.

The world eats them all.

Under the small roof on the porch, one of the others sits. The Ghost holds his distance between them. He remembers when he joined. But he doesn't care to remember the name.

"You let those soldiers escape." He says into the rain.

"Should I have shot them in the back?" The Ghost whispers. His voice is barely more than that. Except when he fights. "Or should I have held a speech to make them join?"

"They just...ran." The man says.

"Frightened people often do." The Ghost answers. Then he just stares into the rain, breathing in deep the smell of wet earth and wood.

"I saw you fight." The man shudders, if it from the chill air or because he remembers the Ghost shoot someone in the head. " I'm glad you have some mercy in your bones."

The Ghost chooses not to answer the question. Mercy. What a word. People never know when to use it right. This poor soldiers ran for their life. But where to? Desertion as a death sentence. Reporting the incident a punishment.

Letting them go will make them suffer. It is the same wrong mercy as it was to get stitched back together.

_Flesh and pain, shattered bones. It smells of something foul and sweet, like death itself. They try to mask the smell. Sharp and stinging in his nose. There is pain engulfing him , like someone sticks a needle in his head-_

"Your clothes," the man says and he follows the look. Mud and so much blood. A little dirt or dust from the road never bothered him. But this will not help moving undetected and it would reek.

"Ah." The Ghost just makes and gets up. He leaps down the porch , into a puddle. Water splashes over his boots up in the air. The rain is like tiny icicles cutting in his skin. He stretches his arms for a moment before standing still and silent in the rain.

"You were a soldier, weren't you?" the man asks suddenly and the Ghost turns his head slightly. "That uniform you wear."

"I stole it." He just whispers, words huffed into a cloud of air.

"You stole that one. But you wore one before. Maybe for another fight. Another side. "

Now his mouth curls into a thin line as he watches the man. Someone he does not even know the name. But that man still sees through him.

"What does it matter what side I was dying for?"

"You're not from around here." he says.

"No."

"But are you Nortan? You have to be."

"Maybe." And that is the only answer he gives. Left to suffer after flames pushed him aside. Reborn on a plane of ashes, because death would not claim him.

A boy that died twice and returned.

Peculiar.

"A soldier. All soldiers are boys these days. My son was a soldier." The man continues, holding his rifle and looking over the arching gapes in the front of trees around them.

The rain has started to get through the coat. The water cannot wash away the stains on his soul. It can only seep into his bones. Cold. Cold never bothered him. He is used to it by now. The stream of water hits his head and runs through his hair, strands longer now, falling in his eyes.

"His mother was crying the day he left and never stopped until he was dead and she followed him."

_Thomas had a mother once. Is she dead? Did she cry when she heard he had fallen? Warm eyes and hand- saying his name gentle, a breeze on his brow- sunshine and the smell of soup-_

"Don't tell me anything about you." The Ghost says. "I will leave soon and don't want to know."

"You leave?" the man asks.

"We will deliver the documents to the meeting point first." He clarifies. "Two days north and a little walk through town."

"But where would you go?"

The Ghost wanders through the high grass, like a sleepwalker. Up to the bleeding holes between the trees and runs his hand along one. Feeling the crisp bark turning wet and cold under his scarred fingers, burn marks going all the way up the back to his hand.

"What does it matter." He mutters into the dark clouded sky. And it is the truth. His feet carry him over misery and loss. They carry him to the burning vengeance in his heart that guides his hand. "South again. Every place is the same to me. A man in this forest dies or breathes the same as a man in another city."

He doesn't wait for an answer. He slips out of coat while he opens the door, almost stumbling about someone sleeping on the floor.

It leaves a trail of water on the floor. Like a snake slithering through a crack and disappearing in the shadows.

Two things that this rain is good for.

It cleanses the dreams and memories off him for a while. And it makes tracking them down much harder in this woods. The rain has not yet stopped when they decide it is time to leave the abandoned hut. Four men and a ghost walk little paths through the underwood that morning. One limping, another cut and bruised badly. The others just weary and sore.

The traveling makes his muscle burn in a welcome sensation. Not quite pain, but uncomfortable enough to concentrate on it.

Waiting until night time when they reach town, the Ghost slips through cracks, climbs over walls and hangs on like a spider in their net, muscles alive. Heart pumping blood through his body.

Not quite a fight. But it suffices for now. He watches the lights reflecting on the squares. He listens to the sound of boots on cobblestone and the whispering promise the weapons they carry hold.

"You're not who I expected." The woman says, braid flinging around. "And very young."

_I am a million years old,_ the Ghost thinks. If he was a tree, he would be big and thin without much leaves, scarred bark and twisted branches, desperately trying to glimpse at the sun and soak it into his few leaves.

"You either wait for a corpse or you take the delivery from me." He just offers, waiting.

The woman shrugs. "Doesn't matter how old you are, I guess."

She makes the slightest gesture of her hand. He takes off his bag and throws it over to her.

"Any news?" he asks to fill the time she shifts through the bag useful.

"Nothing really. Same old, same old."

The Ghost hums low. "Are we done?"

"Lost a lot on that?" she asks, throwing the bag over to him again. He catches the rough leather. It does not weight much. A Ghost doesn't carry much belongings.

"We loose all the time. You just never look too closely." He whispers.

Speaking farewells is sentimental and without any practical value. People bid it in the vain hope of seeing each other again.

It tugs at bonds and feelings.

A word of goodbye is as wasted as a word of thanks.

_Fingers holding on his, skin warm and smooth, a smile – thank you, thank you for seeing me-_

He still finds himself wanting to bid the last word to the men he fought along these past week.

He finds two of them in the hideout.

Missing the limping one and the one sitting on the porch and talking to him.

"I assume they are dead." The Ghost whispers.

_Good men always die too early._

_Fluttering wings, a shot ringing through the air. Ash and blood._

"Was too slow," one of the two says, pale and sick and tired.

_Was too slow to save you, blood staining hands, a desperate voice, shaking, so afraid. No no no not you too- a shot, so loud it seems to break through his eardrums, a soaring bullet cutting through skin-_

The Ghost feels the explosion in his head and shakes it slightly.

What does it matter where you rest your head? In the end, his feet may bring him closer to his destination, if there even is one.

He cannot help these people find peace. If peace exists outside of death, as a hushed whisper and cool kiss.

Suffering will continue. With or without him. He needs to head out of the fog and maybe, just maybe he can find out what draws him, still living, still keeping his limbs moving.


	3. Vacancy

'_They_ _meet and part. In another lifetime, they may have been friends.'_

People do not attempt to find him, for the most part. He finds them instead, drifting along. If he needs to.

Where to go, when enemies spawn everywhere and memories keep you ensnared like a bear trap snapping shut around your feet?

He follows his body more than his head.

The traveling, at least, keeps the body of the boy that was Thomas, alive.

The hiding behind bushes, in lost places and poor huts, excuses with a bare roof with too many people stuffed inside.

The boy wears his tethered restless spirit like a bundle, and the traveling draws him closer somewhere.

He has minimal options to continue but less to return too.

Return to the whatever is left from the splinter group he has served his duty and given his gun too and fight again would be very simple.

But he does not wish to do that.

The handler of screaming death and voices clouded by fog has spent too many times in the forests and the north. And so he moves.

It is excruciating and lonely. Feeling impossible to survive alone to travel so far and so least it would be for people. The Ghost seldom bothers to talk if he doesn't need to anyways. He maneuvers around checkpoints and watchful eyes.

Fire is destruction. It is ever consuming and never fulfilled. It yearns and hungers. Begs to be fed like an animal may set its eyes on scraps. And bites as vicious if you come to close.

Fire eats people as embodiment of life itself.

Water is, as the polar opposite, supposed to be calm.

Water cleanses. Water flows. Where fire is force water should be graceful.

In truth, water holds as much destruction as fire. It can suffocate as much. It eats through stone and turns things rotten.

Little Sword Lake lies silent but not calm, a mile away at most. Through the mud and the trees, the Ghost can sense there is a turmoil. Something not supposed to be there creeps through the bushes. It has been hiding for a few days. He finds snapped branches on his way. Footprints leading away, straying from the safe paths. It's human and it moves. Probably on the run. A traveling soul.

The burnt out ruin that once was a barn has stable doors. It hangs on a hill below trees, an hour march from the lake.

Whoever has lived, breathed and worked here is long gone.

It seems fitting he has chosen burnt land and a leaking roof to hide. The weather in this woods is more lenient. The fog has vanished, the rain retreated. The weather is almost pleasant.

It is a sun that shines in all it's glory, mocking and cackling.

For now, the Ghost blinks into it, like a sleepwalker, as he sits down on the scorched grass. It warms his skin but fails to warm his soul.

There is a rope dangling from one of the trees close by. It may have once been a noose. There is nobody weighing the branches down. Either rotten and eaten away or buried.

Noise outside the barn. It wakes him from an ungrateful sleep. Tears him away from dreams he doesn't want to have. Saves him, for now, from the serpent ready to swallow him whole.

_The smell of sunshine and water, a voice, and a hand, longing, searching, I had a family once. _

_A pale face in the darkness – you were my friend, or did I dream that as well- and then ash, ash, and the crows- _**_CAW CAW CAW CAW_**_-_

His hand moves under the coat he uses as his pillow. The handle of his knife is smooth and fits perfectly. Worn out, recognizing the need of its owner.

It is in the same good shape as his pistol. He cares for the well being of his instruments. But unlike the lover that burns bullets into heads, it is silent. The knife waits and ponders where the pistol sings and screams.

Weapons at least, don't lie about their purpose. They cut and hurt and inflict pain. They do the bidding of the hand guiding it.

In the darkness of the night, no one sees more than Ghosts. For him, the world always is more grey, colors drained and faded. Ghosts drift along the world, wandering ethereal. He lies in waiting, like a snake in the high grass, ready to strike.

It does not take long before something rustles along the treeline. Snapping branches and leaving footprints. The small light must have attracted the wanderer.

The knife glides through the air gracefully. Steel awakening to the song of hunger.

It points at the curve of the intruder's throat.

It's a girl, lean and slender. The darkness is her shroud. Numbers curl along her neck. The Ghost looks at them, curious. Numbers evaluate. Numbers show worth. Numbers replace names when lists are endless and lives worthless.

The barrel of her gun points upwards, at his head. His eyes glide over the dark metal. This is a gun made for efficiency, it is not forsaken and left like his pistol was. Fine craftsmanship, and beautiful promise.

Neither of them moves.

"You hold it wrong." He whispers. His hand twitches on his knife. The blade almost cuts her skin. Smooth and young, stained with sweat. If she is scared he can't see it. Instead, he feels the brimming energy, an energy that stems from desperation and weariness. "Not used to shooting."

"I can still blow off your head." She hisses.

It is a stalemate.

"I will slit your throat before you do. And then we are both dead." His voice is hoarse. Strangely, this is the longest conversation he has held of yet. "So while we breathe. State your business."

The Ghost only huffs out a puff of air. He doesn't ask for the girl's name. Names can be powerful. But they attract attention. Names are gates to the past and images of loss.

_Bare feet in the dirt, fresh scars, the realization- I am alone alone alone- _

_Never free. Never alive. _

_Your name is Thomas, you are dead, dead._

"Haven't eaten for days."

"I thought as much." The Ghost says, and he lets go if her, finally. Touching another person feels wrong. It makes his bones burst and his guts clench together. "Take what you want. Stay. Or hide in the forest again. I don't care. As long as you leave me alone."

He will not kill someone over food or a place to sleep. Not anymore. Not someone sharing his blood.

_Red blood spilled over the floor, shot in the head, splinters of bones. Scattered around careless like parts of a morbid puzzle._

Not someone that points the barrel of despair at his head to survive.

_The first is the hardest they say. The first you will never forget. But no one mentions what threatens to overcome you when you look back and see that after the first there are many more. And he looks back, back, and he sees, but he doesn't want to regret. Weakness cannot be allowed anymore._

She looks at him, but he does not care to look back. He can guess well enough her eyes are weary. It will speak of mistrust.

The barrel of the gun does not disappear. He still moves. Away, out of the range.

The Ghost slips back into the barn and sits down in his corner. The knife and the pistol stay close. Listening to the heartbeat of the forest, the swaying of the branches, he waits. Maybe she will not come. Maybe she will move away. What does he care? Another lost soul on the pavement of lies.

Lies are like stones. Some are shaped from the water streaming along. They turn smooth and round, perfectly shaped, with time. Some will be worn out cobbles. And some are sharp enough to cut.

Everyone is a liar in their own way.

In the small light inside the barn, he can see her clearly when she decides to come in.  
Long black hair, half hiding the block letters on her throat.  
Eyes too old for her face.  
She's not without a certain grace, he guesses. He doesn't care for beauty. Beauty fades. Beauty deceives.  
For a moment their gazes lock.  
He has his weapons. She still holds the gun.

"Learn to shoot when you travel alone." he finds himself saying. "Not everyone will be as lenient as me when it comes to a fight. Wherever you might go."  
She is silent for a while. The Ghost does not bother asking. He does not even want to know.  
She sits down as far as possible.

He throws the meager hard bit of bread from his bag over. It rolls over the ground and rests at her feet.

Brushing off the dirt, she tugs at it, cracking it open and biting into it.

"I am going to the Choke."

"Then you will die." The Ghost promises, without any ill meaning.  
And why would he try to persuade her to stay? He does not command anything. Anything than memories, fog, and bullets.

"What do you care?"

"I don't."_ If you look a dying man in the eyes, you see how the light fades- regret, fear, understanding, why, why is it me-_

She does not try to tell him a sad story. And he doesn't tell her his. Instead, they just sit in the burned barn. Sharing the comfort of a small light and hard bread.  
Knife in his hand, he falls asleep again somehow, guided by breathing.

He sleeps a few hours. Enough to keep his body straight but not enough to invite the dreams back in.

He does not attempt to go near her, sitting down in the corner instead. Her hands still holding tightly to the black gun. Crooked and bent fingers, belonging to a woman and not a girl. As always, hands tell the truth when faces can disguise themselves.

They hug the gun like a child holds onto a stuffed animal. Seeking safety in the dead of night. The metal can't give her warmth, but it may give comfort. When you possess little, the Ghost knows, something that helps to occupy, something that keeps you going, might as well be a gun.

His body has become perfection in sitting still, unmoving as stone. A single ray of light graces his burnt skin as the sun slowly creeps up.

There's a single book hidden in his bag. It is old, whispering pages dirty and stained. Some pages are not readable at all, letters lost in rain and blood. Washed away and used, like the Ghost himself.

Tired eyes, red veins creeping through as she opens them slowly. The Ghost half expects her to point the barrel at him again. She does not.

"Didn't take you for a reader." It is rude and insulting, spoken with spite.

The Ghost looks up slowly. He is not insulted at all if that was what she was hoping for. "Some people think books make better company than people."

And what are books but the whetstone for wits? Not that the Ghost considers his wits his greatest asset. A creature of instincts and reflexes, but what can it do? It keeps him occupied. At least for some time.

"I will spare you details," he murmurs, licking his thumb to turn a page. "Let's say it is a history lesson." Gruesome, superior, but that is what history is about. The winner claims their price to be immortal and everlasting glorious.

_Blue eyes looking up, rustling from paper, a candle and flickering light, sitting in silence. Silence before a storm, silence before-_

He tears himself from his thoughts. Raises his voice a little. " In the end, there is only silence. Might as well fill it with words."

Little time passes before he sheathes his knife and slips into his coat. There is no boding farewell, nor does it have to be.  
Strangers do not need to display affection.

"For your sake, I hope you find what you seek in the Choke. Even if it is your death." he finds himself whispering. He was sure the least bit of compassion had been drained out of his body, withered away when his heart stopped.  
She does not thank him. He is glad she doesn't waste her breath.

Two wanderers part at the edge of a hill. Leaving scorched grass and burned wood behind. One wants to march with determination while the other still searches for his reason.

When the jet arrives, a shimmering point in the distance, coming closer, the Ghost hides. Trees wallow and bend under the gushing wind of the engines. He does not wait to see if they find him. Nor does he look for the girl with the block letters tattoed around her neck.


	4. Haunted Possiblities

'_Sometimes your reflection knows the truth, even if you don't want to acknowledge it_.'

* * *

What is it he is looking for?

He was sure he would be content with walking. Running away. Taking down anything in his way. Not exactly caring who steps back in.

What does drive a ghost? Wishing to find the one person responsible for their suffering to finally haunt them once and forever?

Wouldn't he know where to go for that?

His feet drag him south, just as he had prophesized another corpse on a rainy day in the woods.

He has to be very, very careful. Even if no one knows he exists, they will not just let him walk by.

The Ghost accepts that simple fact. He accepts the future possibility of a fight and he will be sure to fight well.

He finds shelter, sometimes, here and there, if he has to.

A Ghost eats and sleeps, even if the food tastes like nothing and the dreams are just pale images merging with reality and carving a world into stone he fails to fully grasp.

He never hurts anyone that gives in to the polite silent question of this refugee seeking shelter. Sometimes though, people ask too many questions or make wrong assumptions.

It happens one late night again, when he is hiding out in a backyard like a stray dog. There is a girl.

She may be older than the one with the block letters he met and still remembers, because it was the last long contact and talk he had. The last peace before he ventured too close to cities and small towns. She doesn't hold a gun. No machinery of fine crafted death.

He can feel the weight of his knife when she approaches.

Her fingers are cramped around a bucket.

"What do you want?"He asks her. She stares at him again, with the bucket in her hand.

"I just thought you'd maybe want to clean up," She says.

He just takes the bucket.

Silently stares at her face.

There is dirt on her neck, a tiny fleck, and the seams on her elbow are wearing very thin.

"Someone said you were from the Scarlet Guard-"

Words of gratitude.

As if he was a hero.

** _Heroes don't exist._ **

"I am not one of them." The Ghost says, and makes a step back. "Keep your thanks."

"But-"

"Don't think about it. I will soon be gone again."

If she doesn't want to leave, he is afraid he will have to threaten her. Blunt force works for most people because of the fear.

He doesn't have that fear anymore.

If fighting is the only thing that makes you feel even remotely alive you loose fear. The concept of death holds a certain appeal, even if you are not foolish enough to seek it out in the open, and it does erase some of the fear too.

She does not have that.

The water in the bucket almost splashes over his hands when he turns around and looks for another shadow to hide in, just for a moment.

His hands are dirty. The water turns brown and muddy under his fingers sinking in. As if he was poisonous, polluting it.

He stares into the only mirror he has seen for a long time.

The other boy looks back from the water. He moves the same as the ghost, but for the briefest of seconds, the longest blink and the slowest blink he is not the Ghost at all.

Under the dirt and the dust. Under the hollow eyes and the scars.

There is Thomas. And he doesn't disappear.

_How could he forget? He was so young when they met._

_Lanky bones, thin. Freckles of dirt and sweat on skin. Too big for the jacket he wears, hair unruly despite the fresh cut. Not a soldier. Just a servant boy in a better position._

_Faced with the war and the chaos of human misery. But still young and fresh without the scars._

_They kissed, that first time. Behind that tent. Fluttering hearts and careful hands._

_He was still young when he died the first time. Still not a man when he died the second time._

_Smoke, bodies moving, boots soiled. The coppery taste of blood as he bites his lips hard, to stop himself from being afraid. The end comes with **shit and piss and tears** and that is something they don't tell you when they speak of the heroic deed of defending your country._

With force the scarred and calloused hands swipe through the reflection. Spraying the remains of the dead boy away, atomizing it so the pain can stop. The fear however, will not leave.

_I love you, did I tell you that? It means something, right? We never mean anything to the likes of you._

_A kiss and a kiss and a kiss and a smile and anger and confusion ,then nothing much while the fire kills- the smell is abominably and when his skin bursts into bubbles it **sizzles**-_

The knowledge that wherever he runs, whoever he kills , the boy is lurking behind the fog. And he grows vicious. The memories hold no comfort. And his defense is running low. The mold cracks open, ever so slowly. With one gaping bite the sea serpent drags him under water and squeezes the breath out of his chest until he cannot breath anymore.

Under water you cannot yell just as you cannot breath.

The ghost boy makes no sound while he shakes.

His hands never shake. His body is still and controlled. Now it deflates. His hands turn to fists, dirty nails digging into palms. Fighting his body. The only ally he thought he had has turned against him.

_What is it you want?_

_What is it you are looking for?_

With a kick the bucket sails down, water spilling over stone. It rolls and rumbles over the ground.

He cannot cry, he never cries. His body never seems able to provide tears when other people wail and sob.

Instead, his eyes stay dry. The only water is the one that rinses over the ground, between his feet. It forms small rivulets sinking into the ground when his boots stampede away and leaves. As he always does.

_What is it you are looking for, Thomas?_

* * *

The valley has nothing of any romantic charm. Just as all the life, it fights to stay, hostile and cruel. Life bites. It eats. It swallows. It suits the Ghost fine to wander through it. Even if he does not like to move through the open without coverage.

He has his gun at the ready. One move and he will swing around, perfection in his arms stretched out to end whatever is coming to attack him.

In the distance, a crow croaks, the only sound next to his boots crunching over the earth.

** _CAW CAW CAW-_ **

The memory of a beak that buries into an eye flows into his mind as close as ever.

"Hello, Thomas."

The Ghost swings around just as promised, pointing his pistol, finger over the trigger. It begs to be pushed and pulled, it waits to scream for him again.

He does not recognize the face that belongs to the voice. Dirty dark clothes, grey hair. Eyes as red as the blood that was spilled on the plane, as red as the pain flooding him. Eyes that see.

"The fogland soldier, they called you for a while, " the man says. Thomas' ghost clenches his teeth. "The spirit of the dead, returned from the battlefield. Hunting the unjust in vengeance."

His voice is not unfriendly, not curious, nothing. It sends a tingle of understanding over his spine he does not like. The man knows things, things no one should know. Or only a few. And he cannot imagine meeting the few people that know his face, his name, and this one bit of information here, in the middle of nothing, down the road south.

His hands shake again around the weapon in his hand.

His finger never quivers. It never wavers. The hand that pulls the trigger is steady.

"I did not come to attack you." The man is unfazed by the way the Ghost points the barrel at him. And the Ghost realizes it is because he knows he will not shoot.

"You should have been dead." The man says. "But then you would not stay. And everything changes where you walk, because you could not make up your mind for a long time."

A statement that reeks of profanity. The Ghost presses his lips together. "Are you following me?"

"Oh no, I don't need to follow you." The man stares at his fingers on the trigger. "But I have seen you. I see everyone."

"Are you silver?" he asks. Somehow deep within his core, he knows the answer already.

"No, Thomas."

More questions that are unwelcome in the ghost's mind. They confuse the little clear alarms and wires that set traps in his thoughts. He knows a little truth, just like he knows the cobble shaped smooth lies.

He knows his name. He does not seem to be lying.

The Ghost listens if only because he has nothing else to do but walk otherwise.

"Your name," Is what he demands even though it does not matter at all. Names don't matter, faces don't matter. All corpses and ruins. But names also hold power. That is more important now.

"Jon."

"Jon." The Ghost repeats. "So, what else do you see about me? What else is important enough?"

Six words leave Jon's mouth, and they will guide him for the rest of the way.

"The road to Archeon is long." Jon sounds certain.

The Ghost just narrows his eyes. "Why would I want to go there?"

"To seek peace. To seek death." The words spring to live inside the Ghosts chest, vibrating with inner truth and certainty. "You could have joined stayed north and followed into ambushes. You did not. You venture further down south, and your feet drag you on roads that lead to the city."

"If I go there," The Ghost is snared by the truth in the words as he has never been since the day he has died and ran away. Now lies are big and lies are everywhere, but if find a truth, you need to know it. It is as powerful and useful as a name. "If I go there to kill, or fight, how could I win?"

"A Ghost just floats along the living to haunt them," Jon says and the boy that was Thomas holds the gun so tight it hurts. " I don't need to tell you how you climb or slip in. You will walk along squares and bridges , and you will see the palace. You're observant, you will notice a window that needs repairing in a far corner. And...ah, three days later, you will take a shot."

"That does sound like me." The Ghost agrees. Who would have thought he would ever agree with someone he met in the dead hostile valley of grey clouds and old naked trees? "But I would never make it to the shot with magnetrons around, would I?"

Jon does offer an answer to that as well. "You are there in the exact right moment, you'll find a clear line without any disturbances, just as you prefer."

One shot.

One more shot.

For a long time they just stand in the dead grey world, neither looking at the other.

"The road to Archeon is long," the Ghost repeats. Then he turns around and just walks off. He does not wait to see Jon vanish.


	5. Take out the gunman

_'A stroke of luck is all it needs to succeed some days. Unfortunately, some men do not ever possess it.'_

If you're faced with a threat you single out the most important target and then eliminate it.

It is a crucial lesson to learn.

He has proven his understanding for this rule.

He has proven it on the battlefield after being deployed in the front row of a war zone.

He has proven it to be understood when he followed the orders of other men.

It is in his nature by now.

Find the strongest contester, the biggest aggressor, and then take it out as fast as you can. There is a method in that.

Even though in his first battles, he never could take down the threads and everyone he knew got taken by the ash and crows.

Even though he is just the handler. Not the receving end.

Now he has to make a decision. It isn't a hard one at all. The one named Jon helped a great deal to clean this up. Whatever kind of ghost that one is, haunted from future and past and present, he has left the ghost of Thomas with answers and directions.

He was suspicious at first to follow them. But they were so very precise he can't help himself to access them.

He holds the rifle in his hands like he remembers the girl with the block letter tattoos do in her sleep. He hugs it with both arms a moment, taking a breath and feeling the breach in his mind.

There is a difference to the girl, however. The Ghost knows how to use guns. The Ghost is a hunter and he will take down prey today. He has waited for this moment long enough.

At first, it was becoming part of the crowds and daily life again. It is not too hard in a big city like Archeon. The Ghost of Thomas could almost think about beauty if he cared for it. It's a lining of impressive architecture with bridges as veins over the river stamped into the ground with the palace and caesars square as its heart. He has never been here before.

_"You could come back with me when I leave."_  
_Beauty lies in that simple request. But it's too simple. Eyes locked onto each other, hands seeking warmth and familiarity and then there's always the kisses and more, more-_

_"As your guest of honor, I suppose, Prince Maven?"_

_Mocking, hurt, masking it behind the words._

_"There is always work to do."_

_Is the answer he gets. And not the answer he wants. Not the answer he can ever get._

Red Blood proves an advantage sometimes. it has helped to blend in if he just keeps his head down and his eyes never in the same spot too long. He may have killed for a splinter group of the famed and hated Scarlet Guard but no one ever saw his face or heard his real name.

Ghost of the fog lands, a poetic play of words Jon brought up. But meaningless.

He simply had to swap his old uniform for some simple clothing. Worn down in brown and black he doesn't look too different from any other servant boy or messenger, any other worker.

Does he miss wearing the uniform?

He is not sure. It was a good reminder while it lasted but also so very heavily symbolic. If a man that he didn't know could see through the reasoning, others would too. Perhaps parting is for the best. It has to be when parting, loosing, fighting, is all there is still left.

Pretending to be alive is something else entirely.  
He may breathe and walk but they are not the same. Every heartbeat in his chest is a contradiction. It serves as a mockery for the death that abandoned him and left him to stay in misery surrounded by screams and beautiful corrosion.

After floating along and being unnoticeable to the watchful eyes of guards and cameras, the scouting begins.

He knows how to be patient. He has sat in a trench. He has waited for enemy fire and silver blooded dogs ripping things apart with their teeth.

He knows how to cover his tracks, through sunshine mud and rain. He goes through the crowd like they are trees, one by one, gaining cover.

He watches high windows and points. Where guards stand. Where sentinels walk. How servants enter the palace. Somehow he is very sure he is not the only one.  
Everyone in this place spies on one another. And the Reds have eyes too. Even if they are all quiet they exist around him. Not really reachable, just as his own memories.

He finds the spot by the window Jon has told him about. He instantly notices the man repairing the shutter.

Under the right circumstances, a well placed single shot could take out a target from there.

One shot. A single howling bang. An echo of a bursting head. And silence, silence when he wants to scream.

A lot of variables come into play.

You'd need a very good gun. It's a long distance. His old friend the iron lover is not suited for that. It is effective enough but lacks range.

Then there is the timing. A narrow window just like the one he'd be leaning on. But he'll get it soon enough.

When you have the timing and the weapon, you need to keep another eye out for any disruption. Nothing is allowed to bother him.

No silver guard can come in between him and the target.

_You will go to Archeon and you will take a shot._

He has gone to Archeon and he has to take the shot now. No questions are needed.

Very few breaths until the Ghost has found his way to the small windowsill.

The shutters are drawn open. He has made sure that he's all alone. If anyone changes that, they will have to take the consequences.

Concurrently he proves everyone every day he breathes there is no mercy in him. Not one bit of this misguided philosophy people always get so wrong.

And then there's a cloud above shielding any betraying light breaking itself.

He looks down and sees the frames start emerging on the small gap that opens in the hollow of a big entryway to the Square.

A blink; a swallowing of air, tasting the world around himself before he leans forward and looks through the scope.

His finger lays so very gently on the trigger. Not the familiar old friend but a new one. Accompanying him on this last day.

_Seek peace  
Seek death,_

_Seek vengeance.  
_

Is it the same?

There is no metal bender, as far as he can see. Jon was correct about this too.

But there is a woman. Blond hair. With a profile that wakes some resemblance to the picture he always held close to his heart. He closes on her face. He studies it.

Time goes too fast he needs to shoot.

He stares at her face. Finger on the trigger.

She stops.

He still holds his breath.

Her blue eyes stare right at him.

They see him.

She knows he is there.

Mind readers are in his case just as bad as metal benders.

They bend your head and destroy your brain more effective than his bullets could.

He tries to pull the trigger hard.

His hand is not under his command.

There is another one in his head now. Even at this distance.

Faint.

He only notices because he starts to think about memories that are hidden behind the maws of the sea serpent. Memories about himself.

He can't hold his breath anymore. The scope shakes slightly.

And then his scope makes a slight turn losing the focus. And Jon did not tell him this.

He did not tell him that there would be a boy wearing a crown of molten flames.

He knew.

He could not have NOT known.

That is why he does not stay and never trusts people too much.

He should have shot him in the valley right there and then.

The Ghost feels the stuttering in his arms.

He stares attached to the too real and too close image he didn't want to have.

He feels. He feels his heart, the blood pumping through his veins. He feels the tugging of reality merging with what could have been. He feels alive.

_Mine, mine, you're never mine. A laugh, a pale angry face, and fire, fire eating everything._

He studies the curve of a cheek he has kissed and touched a long, long time ago.

Even without the mind controlling his hand and stopping him from shooting, he fights his own war.

The serpent opens its maw. The ghost screeches at it. they fight for the upper hand.

_There is no mercy. **There is no mercy left in him. Not the false kind.**_

Easy, would it be? Change the whole history with one shot.

That was a good idea. A good plan.

After everything he has heard, everything he has seen, would it truly be no mercy to shoot Maven Calore in the head? It would go so fast.

More desperately than ever his finger wants to pull the trigger.

It can't.

He can only watch the face of someone he once thought he knew turn in the scope.

And then the control fades, and the whole group vanishes from his view.

He can't stop the anger, the fear, and the cloud of confusion dazing him.

It makes him shake and shiver. It makes his body fight and his hands denying service.

Even though now he is alone again he is not in control. He leaves the rifle and he runs. Ready to slice through anyone that will get in his way.

_Flesh is soft when you find the right place to bury your sharp edge on it. It breaks easily, first the skin, and then the nerves and muscles and tissue rip and you twist before its over. The knife is so quiet while it follows the hand that flies a curve and points the attack. _

The ghost runs. Runs fast.

Because that is what frightened people do often. They run.

Finds his hideaway.

No second chances. Not for for anything. Not when you used all your second chances.


	6. The Boy That Died Thrice

They are on his heels.

He can almost smell them.

It's the wild odor of a hunt, and as a hunter, he knows it very well. It is the whiff of chaos and chase, sweat and blood, mixed with the sound of feet catching on tempo. The world unfolds in those sounds and smells.

His muscles are drilled to run and move after all the traveling. Wiry tense curled up, ready to leap and jump wherever his reflexes and instincts will make him.

This time, he is not the one waiting in a trench, hiding behind trees, he is not the one with any kind of advantage.

He doesn't know the city well enough.

He has not enough ammunition to shoot them all and he does not have any back up that would at least distract the force that will crush him if he dares an open fight.

And then there is also the life in the city itself. All the people around him that do not know about a boy that sat at a windowsill like stone the last two days, watching and waiting.

They follow him since he has started to run. No doubt that his failed attempt to shoot the mind reading Queen has drawn her attention enough to make sure he gets captured.

He has been prepared for a situation in which he is captured. Or he was before he failed to pull the trigger. Since pulling the trigger was his only option.

_You will go to Archeon and take a shot._

Jon had been wrong. No bullet had been sent flying. Curious. The ghost was sure he was not lying at all. Intentions of people have rewarded him with marks and scars that whisper about violence and death, and this one is no different.

When people have been trees before, now they are flesh building obstacles. He moves as fast as he can in the streets, but it doesn't mean much.

He knows they'll catch him soon enough.

He flies from alley to alley, and eyes follow him everywhere.

He needs to trust his instincts. They tell him to run. And so he does. Even if it seems hard to determine where to go. And why, even.

_One last shot._ He couldn't do it. But that is the purpose of a gun. That is what his finger has been doing all along. It sends the bullets flying with aim and deadly purpose.

_Spinning, kicking, fighting, with a heart pumping, beating, alive, because he is, he is. This is survival at the finest, in a fight that proves-** proves what..? **He cannot afford to think about the reasoning while he moves. _But he remembers, he remembers the night he first stared at the face on the strip of paper he would wear next to his heart. The words he whispers with **spite** and **hate **and **anger** and -__

__You left me. To die. And so I did. But I couldn't stay dead. Death wouldn't have me. __

Everything bites on his senses, and it leaves a wrong taste on his tongue, heavy with defeat, and the worst, with fear. He is not used to this fear. This fear comes with the pulls and leaves in the morning. It is the fear of a child, the fear of a boy, a friend, a lover and it is the fear of the heavy substantial knowledge that now he is prey.

_Thomas_ is scared.

**The Ghost **finds the notion of knowing that appalling.

The backpack and the book are long left behind, just like the rifle. The only things he does carry are his knife and his gun. He does not feel safe with them at all.

Instead, it makes him feel even more exposed.

He runs and hides, stops and waits, climbs and falls.

He can always see them, rounding up, circling, coming even closer.

Four hours of cat and mouse. Hide and seek.

The Ghost sees the sun wander from afternoon to evening.

At the worst moments, he feels weak, and at the best, he feels nothing. Now he is not at his best.

Grueling, as if a dog is nagging at a bone until he smashes it between his teeth into tiny pieces.

Then, when the lights are starting to brim in the arriving darkness of an already grey, thinly veiled sky, he has to make a decision again.

Darkness is good, darkness helps to hide. And no one sees better in the darkness than a ghost. But a city is never quite as dark. Never quite as soundless. Never quite as asleep.

The decision is regarding the bridge that spans in a cruel line over water like a thread that holds a wound together. A bridge lying very silent, and very empty. A monstrous thing made of stone and metal, one side half destroyed and still not completely repaired.

The decision is easy.

Pass the bridge or turn around.

The Ghost looks back. Takes a long breath. And the whiff of the hunt is still in the air.

It could very well be a trap. An easy one, at that.

There is no other way.

No chance to turn around.

After hours of the chase, his head pounds, and he still does not fully recognize the twitching shakes of his head.

He is like a fish in a net, neatly pulled on land. He fidgets and shakes.

A figure emerges from his right next to the bridge abutment.

His old friend the iron lover is heavy when he swings around and with a leap of fate, a flick of his hands, he shoots. The pistol screeches and obeys.

Nothing but air and stone falls to the bullet.

They move too fast. And maybe there are even some that can simply steer and redirect the bullets.

That is what he meant when he told the Ghost named Thomas he would take a shot in Archeon. He has known it all, really.

Everyone is a liar in their own way. Jon has just said the things that were true in the wrong order.

It is a very technical way of speaking both the truth and not speaking the truth at all.

A sound emerges from his throat. It spills over his tongue hoarse and strangely unfamiliar. It leaves his body with an eruption of air from his lungs.

He laughs. He laughs so loud and so hard as he has never in his life. He can't stop the shrill sounds.

Right, hunters. Left, hunters.

Uniforms.

A fire has started the cycle of death. It is almost absurdly poetic that water will end it.

The water is not cleansing at all. It is not the well of life. The rushing stream will tear him apart.

He jumps down legs first, body straight, with his hands over his head. As if he was about to just drop off a wall onto the ground as he has done so often. This fall is ultimately longer. The air soars over his ears. His hair gets tangled and pushed back when he moves his head. Just a little.

His body is still moving and stumbling in the air, it doesn't fall perfectly straight despite his efforts to keep his legs down.

He isn't exactly sure why he still cares. Jumping off a bridge hunted by people after failing an assassination and wanting to survive?

His instincts and reflexes fight his tired mind on that.

The impact is not peaceful at all.

It is an explosion in his stomach like someone has shot him in the belly.

He can't scream or breath. Air is a construct void of any meaning under the water.

And with the world above left, he closes his eyes. He lets the air out. He lets the pulls in. And they tug and yell and sing.

_A smiling face framed by two long rays of yellow warm light, sneaking through a makeshift curtain in the only room they have and share, she has a birt mark next to her ear, he sees it because she pushes her hair back before she picks him up and they spin, **spin**, and he wishes he could spin forever because they laugh, and hearing his mother laugh is precious. _

_Throwing stones into the water, with a pair following him in some distance, not speaking at all, watching the silent pond, and he is sure is doing it wrong, that spending time is not helping anymore. Because it won't change a thing and they won't be friends, and it makes him angry. He cannot make the stones jump. He tries again and again and fails. But the blue eyes still watch him. Maybe that is **all **that counts. In between the two of them._

_Laughter and Crying and Pain. Pain is the only real thing that stays. Accompanies him like a loyal friend and a true advisor._

And the pain continues to advise him. It wants him to breathe and move.

He floats along somewhere, through heavy rushing masses of water.

This is not release. Nor afterlife. The Ghost was trapped in this world for so long he recognizes the sights of pain that flares through his nerves at all times.

Even when he loses consciousness, he is aware through the pain, the veil of blackened sight, that this cannot be the end.

If it is, it takes too long. Longer than he thought it would.

Yes, jumping off into the depth was a sentence calling for pain to begin with. But was that pain at least not supposed to end somewhere?

And suddenly there is something that tugs at his physical form. Voices real and alive, human, not from the afterlife, the other side.

Seconds go by. Or an eternity. His lungs burn when he coughs and the pain swells again. he wishes he could stop breathing.

"Don't move him too much, his head could be hurt." It is no voice he has ever heard. After the lovely laughter of his mother it seems rough and wrong. It is speaking with some sort of accent too.

"His ribs are broken, I think. Maybe his back too."

His hand snaps alive weakly, trying to reach out to the figure speaking, fingers clawing. To fight, to ask for help. He is not sure about it. Still not yet ready to give up.

He groans, a single low sound indicating that he is awake.

Eyes find him. Watchful eyes.

"Welcome back to the living fogland soldier," a voice behind the daze of pain and the pounding of his head greets him. Unfamiliar, with that accent again. "You didn't think no one would notice you traveling through half a country and trying to kill a Queen right on her doorstep, did you?"

He would laugh if his lungs would work properly. His ribcage is an explosion of pain when it moves up and down.

He would perhaps cry if he knows how to do that.

The Ghost just closes his eyes again, not trying to get up again.

"Where am I?" He whispers.

"Safe for now. We'll be moving soon. You impressed some people." The voice says. "Sneaking around in the capital? Acquiring that rifle? And almost taking the shot. All alone."

He thinks about the cryptical words about peace and death, a place to be, and the so very precise premonitions that guided him to the window, mixed with the lies that made him more certain._ Is that why you told me to go instead of stopping me? So I would end up with these people, Jon?_

The Ghost should have known. Someone that sees everyone's future plays the long con.

"What now?" He asks, and the world shakes around him, even behind closed eyes. If it is because of the pain or if he is on some kind of boat, who knows?

"Catch some sleep."

If he knew what a boy named Thomas dreams about, he would not wish sleep on him.

But for now, he is right. There is nothing to do but sleep and wait. Wait to be fixed. Wait for assistance. Wait to see where he will go.


	7. Forget-me-not

_And when in distant lands I roam,_  
Far from this dear and hallow'd spot,  
And exile from my native home,  
Oh ! think of the Forget-me-not.

_Mary Anne Browne_

* * *

_His only visitor is unexpected. After the fire, blue eyes laying in waiting, sharp bones formed out of graceful colorless diamond shards._

_Pain so big he can't do anything but turn his head slightly and blink at her, a burned scorched husk of a breathing being._

_She waits for his eyes to adjust focus, dilated dark pupils racing, the smell around him will forever stick to his skin with the force of a chemical component that will not leave the taste of his mouth. Nasty, nasty, and a tongue glued to the back of his throat. Swallowing hurts as if he forces a wadded ball of cotton down._

_"Where-What-" Is the only words he can muster to say. A disgraceful misstep of etiquette, but so is her sole appearance on the old creaking metallic side of his bed._

_"You poor boy." Her voice almost friendly. Eyebrows drawn together._

_Dreary and doleful, inconsolable._

_He has never met her. Enough words exchanged between two boys about family. But now she is here, here with him, and he does not understand how she found him or why-** why****?**_

_A sigh, a single heave of a chest dressed in a dark blue and white jacket. "I told him it wouldn't end well. I didn't think it would happen like this, though."_

_"Where is-" Bursting bubbling skin, breaking and reeking, charcoal sulfur and pain,** pain **like he has never experienced before-"Maven?"_

_"He won't visit you. But you knew that. " Certain words, without much scorn, just slight cold. But rational, very rational. "You wouldn't want him to see you like this, would you?"_

_Like this? Like what?_

_A pile of scars and wounds and molten skin halfway stitched up and bandaged, ugly screaming on the back of his hands when he forces himself to look, **what am I?**_

_"He asked me if he could just forget you, you know. And maybe that would have been for the best."_

_Forget , forget the shame. Forget whatever was there and was not._

_Hand stretching out, touching the rough side of his bandaged arm, a hand that feels smooth for a second. No comfort, too confused._

_He stares at her, faces numb, not able to think clean._

_A stuttering breath. Another. He wants to** cry **and **weep** and **wallow** and **wail**-_

_"I can't offer exactly to make the memory disappear, Thomas. But I can offer you the same as him. To move on and away from this mess."_

_The flat of a hand touching his arm one more time._

_Clean up after the mess, that is what it is, what it will always be, a mistake, a failure, a broken heart, and a burned body._

_Blond hair pale in the sterile sick light, sitting silent, almost artistically pitiful._

_"Those scars will look terrible. We can arrange for them to be erased. No one will ever know."_

_An offer not because friendliness is inside her but because she wants to sway him. Erase she says, erase she means._

_Pain tugging at his mouth, face, body, hands, feeling the fever dream of flames licking still. Because the last memory of the boy he loved is fire and will always be.  
_

A flash of pain, a light circling over the grey behind his eyes, the Ghost sits up slowly. At least as far as his ribs do allow it.

His lips are very dry. He licks them once. Breathes through his nose. Takes in the faint smells around him.  
Sometimes pain does only remind you about older wounds, and it doesn't help he hasn't moved much the last days.

Miraculously, his back and his head are not damaged from the fall. Three ribs, however, are badly bruised and snapped into two. It makes traveling a bit harder. Escaping is about the momentum, the rage of the tempo, as he has relearned on the hunter's chase at the bridges in Archeon.

In the distance, just behind the far planks of wood, and a door, he can hear voices talk. A small laugh, a genuine weird sound that doesn't connect too much with him.

Slowly, ever so slowly, he forces himself up.

He moves without as much as making one sound. It is one breath at a time with sheer spite and clenched teeth, grey flashes of pain because, despite the possible treatment, they are still on the run and cannot afford to lose time or blow their cover.

His toes in the boots curl up with every too long step of his legs as if he was a cat retracting his claws.

Another sprawled sentence, longer now. The Ghost leans himself against the door, listening, trying not to faint. Finding out about your company helps, especially when you are wounded. The Ghost knows listening is viable enough.

"Wake him up in a few hours. We need to leave." The first one orders. He is Lakelander. He tries to hide his accent. He does a rather poor impression.

"Did you see him fall?" A second voice asks. "No one should be able to be alive after that. Should have busted his skull. He landed like he just wanted to dip in and take a swim."

"Are you fucking surprised?" A third one chimes in, female. "Look at his cheek. Like he took a shrapnel straight to the side. Tough one."

"His throat too. And his hands."

If the Ghost could be amused, perhaps he would smile at the metaphor of calling him ruined and ugly. Beauty isn't anything he is ever concerned with. The old scar tissue is what it is. Ugly or not, he often forgets about it. And despite it, he always could blend in. Maybe it is because people don't want to look for too long at something unpleasant.

"Maybe he IS a spirit after all." The second voice mutters. "He isn't like us, that is sure."

"As far as I am concerned," The voice with the accent ends the very discussion. " We retrieve him and bring him where superiors want him. He's caught attention now. Whatever he is or isn't."

The Ghost agrees.  
Enough to get saved, at least.

A man that predicts futures for all lives has sent him here. He ought to have some understanding that this will be having an impact.

He still leans against the door when the handle turns.  
One staggering step, a piercing pain, he almost falls.

"You got some willpower," comments the one with the accent, apparently leader of the group.

He's in his twenties, with his hair cut so short it's barely visible. Guardsman, or a soldier, apparently, by the way, he holds himself. The Ghost supposes he shouldn't be surprised he was found viable enough to keep alive. He is good at serving and handling. In times of violence, such people get value.

"You could have something against the pain," he gets offered by the woman calling him tough. The Ghost doesn't care for any of their names. They still tell him. He refuses to use them.

_Needles and haze, sweet, sweet, lulling him into honeyed sleep despite the horror of the knowledge what his body is going through-_

"No." Is his firm answer.

They stare at him as if he truly was a manifestation. A poltergeist.  
Is it satisfying or irritating?

It is nothing, like always, no real strong impression, the taste of stale air and the smell of the wood, the warmth their bodies make, he notices it all-

Ghosts haunt the living, they don't love, no no. Else they would feel more than the pulls, they would be more and less than they are now, and the ghost cannot afford that, can never afford it.

"You said we had to move." Is all the Ghost whispers and drags himself back.

He doesn't have the strength to handle emotions around him if he has to concentrate his whole being on pushing through and getting wherever these people want him to go.

They move slowly despite the upgraded ways of traveling. By foot, the ghost assumes, he would be very, very dead by now. But even days are too much, and no vehicle, boat or even jet could be fast enough for him to never look back at the failure he has experienced down at a window with a rifle, staring into alarmingly blue eyes. Too slow for the Ghosts taste. But it is solely his fault for being damaged.

The Lakelander proves viable. He takes over any form of communication in the small group. The Ghost doesn't mind. The less talking he has to do, the fewer people he has to see, the better. He won't however, leave the Ghost alone, invading private space and trying to spark conversations whenever possible. He meets silence and hollow eyes most times, refusing to answer questions.

"You know, you will answer a lot of questions when we have reached our destination, fogland soldier," The Lakerlander mutters.

"Maybe." The Ghost of Thomas forces his voice to say. He doesn't care for a sparking conversation. "but I don't have to answer you."

He is not overly hurt by the Ghost refusing to answer, but instead, he puffs out a breath. "We risked our lives to follow you around and retrieve you in the case you were to survive your suicide commando."

"If I had stayed up in the woods," He asks, just because he wants to know if he is on the right trail of thoughts. "Would you have come to me too?"

"No. Even though it would have been a lot less risky than waiting for you to kill the royal family in the capital, I think the orders-"

"Orders?" The Ghost asks sharper than he thought he was able to give his hoarse voice emotion. "What orders?"

"You were useful up there. But you weren't...I think you weren't important. That shot you wanted to make, that made you important."

It confirms his suspicions. Does not console him. But confirmation is more than enough for now. The next time he will see Jon, he will shoot the red-eyed bastard. No future or premonition of it can save him from it.

The images in his head are endless on repeat.

They cut and hiss, try to break free and harm him.

_"Please don't forget about me. Even if you leave."_

_There is some comfort in his hand being able to touch him in the dark._

_"How would I ever forget you?"_

_And he smiles, because it is a generous offer of wonder and confusion._

_A lie. A lie. Because in the end they wish to forget._

The Lakelander finds him under the only tree close enough to the hideout, right out of side of any paved way or watchful eye.

"Why are you sitting here? You're still not recovered and unarmed."

"I think better if I am not forced inside a room," The Ghost offers, his voice is soft, to his own surprise. "And I am never unarmed."

Just to prove his words right he lifts up the knife in his hand, one small silent friend. He holds it carefully away from any kind of sunshine that could produce a shimmering fleck.

"It would never feel right. I do miss my gun."

"You could ask us for a new one."

"I will. But it won't be mine anymore." The hand had already been given away, the iron lover that never lied is gone now too. His knife, his backpack. The strange thing is that even if all the emotional value is almost void, he still feels the flimisiest attachments that remember very well cleaning the gun and reading the book. "I cared very well for it. A good and trusty instrument. Drowned in the river or left on the bridge."

"You're a weird one. I am proud to announce I could establish contact about our progress," the Lakelander says. "Since we will reach our destination some time, fogland soldier, maybe you should prepare yourself to answer questions."

The Ghost of Thomas has kept his past from himself. No one else could ever know about it. No one will ever recognize him.

"They can ask all they want."

"Hm." The man makes. "Is there something else?"

The Ghost decides to take the chance. He doesn't trust the man. But he will answer him somehow, at least, and he wasn't stuck in the woods.

"I was irked because, despite her strategic value, I haven't seen nor heard anything about the whereabouts of Mare Barrow." The Ghost sits silently in the dark, half broken bones and half iron will push through the gift of the pain advising him. "Just the same old words, same old images, wanted posters and declarations about being the enemy and the dangers of the Guard."

"Oh, didn't you get the reports? How strange, you must have been busy with planning to get yourself killed."

"I never claimed to be worthy of information. I just noticed it. " The Ghost is unimpressed by the sarcasm. It flies straight over his head.

"Maybe you can ask people in the higher ranks after they are done with you." The Lakelander offers dry and takes his leave.

"Maybe." The Ghost agrees. "It solely depends on how you want to use me, though."

"Is there more than your incredible will to push yourself through pain?"

The Ghost stares at the scarred palms of his hands, the knife they hold and twirl around. He feels the breeze and he feels the unsure energy of the traveling group, as he always did. People may endure, but they don't want to run all the time . They have a destination. They have families. They have homes. "There is always more."


	8. Interlude: The Courtesy of a Liar

If there is one thing you can count on, it is the surgical sense a certain whisper has. His mother has broken into his head so often he can almost feel in return when something is disturbing the blissfully cold peace she has when things go her way.

He notices that the sense of safety awry this evening. She forces a smile on her face, one half tugged up the corner of her thin mouth, but as soon as he is distracted, it disappears.

The next indication is always the swarm of security and other occasional guests popping into the rooms they inhabit at that time of day.

It happens for the whole evening. She tries her best to conceal it.

"What do you mean he is nowhere to be found?" His mother asks quietly. More of a strategic question than true care, leaning backwards and keeping the people around her at a close look.

"I mean what I say, your Highness." His voice is regretting to say that. Understandably. "He jumped in the water, easily over a hundred feet. There has been a search party for his body, but it is like he has vanished."

"A corpse doesn't just vanish."

_Well_, Maven thinks, _unless you make it. _

But that is the end of that discussion when the man disappears with some respectful nod again. The topic about whoever's corpse needing to be retrieved does eventually return again to his ears, even though she tries her best to disguise it.

His mind and thoughts may be occupied, but she didn't break him down again and again to create an idiot. The continued hushed words and almost nervous looks only serve to her discredit for keeping it away.

The next time it does come into his presence again, she is sitting on her chair, behind the long desk, hair pulled back into a tight knot.

"We processed all the information we could find about him. He's on very few cameras. He was careful." Eyes wander over the crown along with his head and trail down. "Your Majesty." A courteous and respectful slight bow to his right, a salute on heels to his left. They are pale. They should know what failure does bring them. And they do.

"A moment, please." She asks of him, before turning around to the dark uniformed man in front again. "Of course he was careful."

"As I said, we are doing everything as you ordered as to."

"He used a security breach. He escaped and you failed to capture him or retrieve his body. What does that say about your work, Captain?"

There is clearly some hurry and something that has crawled enough into her skin to pester her.

"I want to be immediately informed about any news."

"Of course." The Captain nods again.

"You are dismissed." His mother says.

The man disappears but the artful doubt about what exactly is triggering another rigged alarm in his head and hers as well does stay.

"Something bothering you?" He asks this time.

She doesn't answer, a statue made of marble and ice in grey and white light, not even attempting to smile or lie it away.

"Mother."

If they were anything but themselves, he may would demand an answer. But she wouldn't give it anyway.

Something cracks and dies between them a moment in the silence.

"Don't let it distract you." A warning. Another warning and advice after all the shielded attempts to get a grasp. her hands are flat on the desk, smooth white fingers half stretched over a photograph."You are easily distracted sometimes."

_Call it a distraction, call it anything, we both know you despise it when I do things my own way._

He simply sits down, hands folded. Tries to get a better look at the image. A face, a frame, a hood. "I am more distracted by the way you try to hide this from me."

She crosses her legs, moving on her chair, spine straight and face blank. "There was an attempt that threatened our lives, but I didn't want you to be concerned."

Another one. What is different about it that she is trying to quieten it, and not use it to any kind of advantage?

"He was smart about it. And patient. He almost shot me, I suppose he didn't take into account I could recognize he was there." Disgust curls her lip just a little bit. And still, something under the exterior that is not to his liking as well.

Her hand moves up and away. Slide over the picture.

The image is a convoluted mess of shadows and truths, fluid motions of something that creeps up at night and leaves you muttering and restless.

The scars have faded over the years, but they are still visible enough. On his face, one sneering, half molten kiss, mocking Maven when he looks at it. Stealing innocence and youth. They are a ruined puzzle over his cheek, along with his eyes, tugging on side of his lips.

The smell of burning flesh rises from some buried memory, the way he leans away and vomits the first time he remembers.

But then there is also his eyes, dead set in his face, with both too much and too little life, dark pits half cloaked in shadows, bearing little semblance to any kind of twinkling smile and surprise he remembers.

One breath and one silent name in it, just like the firmament of a dazzling dizzy night sky, falling down and smashing, exploding. Leaving the memory of something awoken that once was whole and then broke down and got lost in the ether.

His mother watches him very closely. He half expects her presence in this very moment in his thoughts.

He still stares at the half-concealed face under the hood, one monstrously disfigured side of a face, and another smooth, indicating the face is so very young. It is the hands that irritate him the most. They cling to a backpack in the image. As burned and ruined as the rest of his visible face. They seem rough, not small, not fragile or shaking, twitching.

It's a **trick**. Some poor sought out scheme to bring him off balance. Because in no possible way the boy on the image is the same one he remembers. Second rate theatre conspicuously brought out, he can only guess what little tells have concluded in this psychological prickling attack.

_What about Thomas, the Red boy? Mare Barrow asked me. He's dead, I said. _

"This is...well executed, I suppose," He says.

"This is complicating matters farther," She answers.

He is dead, she does not say, but they both know.

The longer he stares, the more the pressure in his stomach gurgles and buckles up. His skin is tingling with something tainted.

"Unexpected." She mutters."The report said there was no survivor. They crossed his name from the list. Killed in action."

"I remember the report about the fire." _It was an accident, I lost control, an accident, I swear- _

She shuts him off with an abrupt shake of her head. "This is not exactly about the fire."

The muscles on his throat and neck twitch when he grinds his teeth behind his closed tight mouth. "Not exactly?"

"The poor boy was barely alive after the fire, and he was..._disfigured._ But you thought he was dead, and that was for the best."

_It is for the best if you can keep the remainder of pain, a quick and easy heartbreak, it makes you focus. _

His stomach cramps. The tenseness creeps up his shoulders first. His hands start to shake. He curls his fingers into fists, bending slowly, knuckles turning white.

"It was for the best?" A rhetorical question without much substance.

"After what happened? Yes."

He forces his eyes down on the image again.

Nothing much is left of the boy he used to be. He wasn't a fighter. He wasn't a soldier. He has grown up into something that's both dead, a memory, something you recall and wish you had kept it closer, and something else. Something making you doubtful, something quiet.

"He did eventually die," she explains. "And if I had told you that, would it have made you feel better? That you didn't do it only to know he was gone anyway?"

"He obviously didn't stay as dead as you thought he would," he does not lash out at her, but he might as well. They are both tense and rigid and they both are watching the line he is walking very carefully, separated by the dark wooden desk and cut into short pieces of anger.

She scoffs softly, one long drawn mocking breath, eyes focused on his face.

"People nowadays do have the uncanny ability to return when you least expect them."

He doesn't answer to the jab in it, the mock or the attempt to keep the upper hand in a discussion unhinging and unsettling him, with a feeling that makes him want to combust.

"But this one is on you as much as it is on me," she continues. In closed quarters alone, she can be very vocal about doubts, or wrongs, or failures. "You begged me for a way to forget it."

As if he's an automaton, an engine, a clockwork that needs maintenance to run.

He is.

There is a weight at his neck, and it only gets worse, tingling and unnerving. It doesn't come from the crown on his head. He is used to the physical weight by now.

"I want him to be found. Alive."

"He pointed a weapon at our heads. If I hadn't stopped him, he would have pulled the trigger on you. He isn't that sweet boy you want to remember."

_But neither is he, isn't that right?_

"I want him alive," he repeats himself.

"The chances for anyone surviving that fall are slim."

_Don't get your hopes up. Is it even hopes? What would you say to someone that was burned alive because of your inability to stay in control?  
_

"I said. I want him alive." He can barely control his voice, gritting his teeth. "Before anyone else can use him."

That is more reasonable than she was probably expecting. "I will share whatever information I can find, as long as you promise me not to senselessly chase after him."

He leaves the accusation behind it unanswered. He is far from being able to address the wound point in their usual discussions, with one name, one memory of betrayal and misplaced trusts.

Not when yet another has returned.

"I want a medical record about the fire." His eyes force hers to look back, blue on blue.

"There is no such thing as a record, but I can arrange for something else to be retrieved." She does waver, not breaking eye contact. "And maybe you want to read about his time in the military positions too. He had a different name back then."

"Your courtesy?"

_The courtesy of a liar, one could say. _

"A small gift after he refused my other offers," she admits, tilting her head. "Will this distract you again? Or can I count on you to keep your senses?"

He holds the image tightly between his hands. He can feel the hostility cracking through the dead face.

_He pointed a weapon at our heads. He would have pulled the trigger. _

_Alive. _

_With the intention to take him down._

The paper crumbles in his hands when his fingers claw into it with force. With a flicker of heat at the glimpse of a silver bracelet ,fire springs alive.

The scarred face burns again in his palms with a flurry of ashes and cinder, easy inflammable. He burns again until there is nothing left this time.


	9. Light a match, Take a step

_'You either feed a flame or let it die.'_

* * *

The matchstick snatches along the rim of the box and with an ignition, it springs to live.

The flame is tame and small. It grows eating the wood. It gets hot on his hands. Slowly.

He lets it.

Fire doesn't scare him any more than the sound of a bullet or the blood of a dying man. It makes him not angry anymore. All he feels is the heat, it feels wrong, but he pushes through it. The way he feels himself reacting to the heat is more than he can say for most days that he is not fighting or running.

It is dark inside the stone walls and musty stale air flares through his nostrils.

He stares at the predatory, lurking orange of flames. They tingle on his face warm and gentle, false safety, as the scar tissue can attest.

He gets lost in the eerie glitter of red and blue, black smothered wood and orange-tinted light.

He once thought the fire could be beautiful. Since the Ghost has stopped caring or finding sense in aesthetics, he can't see any more beauty in flames. All he sees is death, and pain, and the longer he stares the more he regrets having eyes at all.

Not so different from the first time a boy named Thomas met a prince named Maven.

_"We'll never talk about this again," A voice very quiet and a face crumbled in embarrassment, smooth brow drawn together, blue eyes twitching, dark eyelashes blinking rapidly once, twice._

_The words are harsh in the leftover silence and dim light, that was filled with another kind of sound hidden behind two lips. The answer is not any less harsh or angry.  
_

_"That kiss behind the tent or the way I...you know." They know, they know both._

_And no answer just the reluctant breath of lungs, followed by one other._

The matchstick dies in his hands, a last sigh and it's gone. He lays it to his feet in heavy boots. Ignites a new one. Watches the flames bending the light brown wood, crunching it until it bends and turns black.

_"Let me help you clean up and then-"_

_Smell faint, crisp ashes and sour gone eggs, coppery blood almost like a taste on the tongue. and the snapping of a desperate predatory instinct forced in some corner on bare stone._

_"Don't touch me!"_

_But the hand never does what it is told when it comes to them, and reaching out there's fire in a short bust, warning, and hissing._

_The boy will not be fast enough later, now he steps back quickly. Hurt in pride, why? I just want to help- Retreat.  
_

_I am sorry, he will say later, I am sorry._

He suppresses the memories. Instead, his head returns to an almost technical retelling of his self perched in the window with a gun.

He tries to angle it, measure it. He was patient and calm up until the Queen was in his head, burrowing. He could have moved his finger, brushing along the trigger softly and with care. He imagines it would have been a clean one.

A whisper with a rotten dead shell of a brain can't creep up anymore. He prefers to shoot anyone in the head, swift and efficient. Just to make sure.

No one has yet done it to him. He knows that even his ability to breathe again wouldn't stand a chance to a piece of metal splattering pieces of his skull and brain matter over the ground.

Bit by bit, the calm ends and gets replaced by something else.

His body bristles under the nervous energy flowing through his system.

If he gets knowledge of the Ghost's appearance and his attempt to shoot him or his mother, he will not leave him to die. He is no longer a boy in the midst of wartime, he is no longer a second son and prince.

Use and abuse and then drop the ballast off. Isn't that how most silver people see the world? Why would a prince and now king see the world different?

And not any king, but this one.

_King of Norta, the letters read, and the Ghost stares at the sharp-edged face, the way he holds his head, dark hair curling along his ears and neck, a crown gleaming. He folds the paper, pressing it against his chest- Why do I still care? I don't want to- As if he could smother the essence of the boy he once knew and the boy the Ghost was once, suffocate him without ever having to touch him to bring impending death and doom._

Would he even recognize the Ghost? He doesn't recognize himself most times he sees his reflection.

And if he does recognize him, does he care? After all, he left him to die and then just threw him away.

He wasn't visiting in the hospital. Just his mother making offers and attempting to keep him quiet.

He'll be less than pleased for any scornful attempt for his life. The Ghost supposes if he was to get hold he'll be squeezed out for all the little secrets before they will kill him, and nothing will stop death now that luck has run out. Everyone wants their enemies dead in the end. Even if they play and make them suffer a little before finalizing the solution.

The thought makes something in his scars tingle. Tapping fingers of tension tickle him.

What if he wants him alive?

The Ghost remembers the shrill unnatural way he laughed on the bridge. He doesn't feel like laughing anymore.

No. No, he would not want the Ghost alive. The Ghost may have weak spots regarding their memory and he tries to shield and dance away from the soft aching pain and bitter putrid hate, but he was willing to pull the trigger, under the force compelling his body and stopping him.

He would maybe keep Thomas alive. But that boy has been set on fire and died in horrible pain, engulfed in flames melting his face.

Nothing is left but ashes, and blood. And for the best, because how would they ever be anything again when there is nothing but old wounds and scars?

The flame cackles and dies in his hands again.

He remembers Jon again, guiding him. Giving him a push.

And what a push. A push to be faced with a face he once loved and a finger ready to pull the trigger even though something bloomed inside his chest, flowers of red blood and love, desperation and memories.

A push off a bridge. Sailing into the darkness of the water ready to be consumed.

The Ghost is very sure he won't see him again any time soon.

Gone again towards his truthful future, the Ghost doesn't want to even try and understand and is far from caring. After all, even with intentions that aren't malicious towards him, the long term game of manipulating time is something that affects the whole world. A great responsibility, maybe a burden but definitely a strong power to behold.

The Ghost is wary about big power. He is no leader and he doesn't want to be. People would be very mistaken looking for steady guidance at his side. The last time he did lead a group of limping and tired men through a forest, he gained nothing but questions and witnessed them die and suffer until he decided to leave.

A sound behind him wakes the Ghost from the memories that disturb him. His hand wanders down one side to the handle of the small silent friend that is his knife.

"Time to move," The woman says. In the dead dark silence, the Ghost makes a decision. He may not have been able to kill or harm Maven Calore, but he will rather die than getting captured. A nice sentiment, a selfless sounding one, almost. It may feel idealistic enough for his companions to carry on and through, he is sure. But death is no reverse sweep, and there will be no escape soon enough. Because whatever questions will be asked, he is sure he'll be used in the best appropriate way. And that would be out somewhere, lurking, waiting, until he can take the shot.

He takes a step outside, hands clasping around the doorframe and blinks in the light twice.

A weapon doesn't lie about its purpose.

A Ghost only haunts the living.


	10. Aside a Divination

_'Who is more lonely? The man that denies the past or the man that denies the future?'_

* * *

They run in circles through Norta. As someone used to the chase, and to wandering, the Ghost doesn't complain about the hiding, the routes they take for evasion. After all, the group is small, and they can't afford to catch attention.

A part of the Ghost is fine with the deliberation. It only steels his determination again. It helps to heal the broken wounds on his skin to new scars. That part is fine with the fact he can delay the necessary questioning.

The other part, the restless one, the one that fights shadows in every corner, wants to be delivered as fast as it can. And it wants to be out of reach to get captured.

Somehow, everything was easy as he decided to leave the woods and march to the capital, hopping on red transports, stealing papers and an identity, even a rifle. Now, the streets and towns are yelling nests, cautious with silver eyes and stops that halt their group when they have to use roads.

"I don't like this," The Lakelander whispers when they get to a nifty situation that involves a clogged road and a silver officer."I don't like this at all. There isn't supposed to be a barricade in this part of the road."

The ghost stares at the metal plank and the guns on point, precise and at the ready, with one easy move they can rip through a chest and destroy skin, muscles, nerves, and organs.

"We can move around if you let me find a way," The Ghost offers.

"You aren't going anywhere," He hisses back. "If I don't deliver you alive I have risked all of our lives for nothing."

The Ghost lets them. He simply sits back on his feet and weighs the knife between his fingers a moment.

They make it. And for the night, they hide in a shed. The ghost can smell the sea from here. Water wherever your eyes wander on the horizon. A boy named Thomas would have loved the sea.

The ghost doesn't care. He only wants to go further.

"Did you see how they stared at him?" The woman asks later. "They know."

"Well, he's not particularly inconspicuous with that scars."

The Lakelander blows out a stream of air and is offended in the ghost's place. "He can hear you."

All the Ghost does is standing up silently, broken skin and hurt flesh moving away from the rest of the group into a corner filled with shadow. The group splits and moves around the shed. He lies awake for the most part of the night, until his eyes betray him and he falls into a soft moment of weakness and blurry images.

A sound behind him wakes the Ghost from the memories that always disturb him.

No one else is in the small room decorated by cobwebs and yawning nothingness.

His hand wanders down one side to the handle of the small silent friend that is his knife.

"You won't use the knife," a voice explains. This time, Jon isn't announced by the song that the murder of crows sings.

"I should use it. I want to." The Ghost whispers with a voice that severs through the air and cuts instead of the knife directly burrowing into Jon's flesh. "You lied to me. I want nothing more than to stab you through your red eyes."

He wants to get up and run his fist right into the man's jaw, and if he can, he should end the unnatural madness of trying to control the future, playing the long term like life is not suffering already. One single timed stab will do. He knows where to slice to make it hurt and he knows where to slash to make it fast.

"I didn't lie. And you will never stab or shoot me," Jon assures him. For a second he almost looks like he cares. But what does a mountain care for the wind howling around it?

"You knew this would happen. Everything. You sent me into some mission, you made me bait."

If Thomas' Ghost is made of fog, Jon is made of whispers and shadows. He doesn't move, eyes somewhere lost in the bright or doomed versions of the world around him. "One way or another, Thomas, you would have gone. And believe it or not, this future is a better outcome for you than the previous."

The Ghost brandishes the knife ready in his hand. To his surprise, Jon simply sits down on the spot by the door. The ghost is very sure that his guards are occupied. No one will ever know that Jon has decided to slip in and out of this room.

"What were the previous?" The ghost of Thomas asks, voice hoarse. The prospect of more pain comes to mind, then the prospect of something else. Maybe something better. But what could be better? This is is existence, and he is a floating specter of pain since the first time he died.

_Ash-Fire-Death-it repeats and repeats and it will never stop-_

"It doesn't matter anymore what visions I had," Jon answers. "They are lost. I gave you the push to be on the window because I had to."

And what a push. A push to be faced with a face he once loved and a finger ready to pull the trigger even though something bloomed inside his chest, flowers of red blood and love, desperation and memories.

A push off a bridge. Sailing into the darkness of the water ready to be consumed.

The Ghost doesn't say it.

"It's lonely, isn't it? Behind the future?"

Just as it probably is in the past. Or the present. Who is the Ghost to dare and make one better than the other?

Jon is the same unmoving, unreadable creature he was before, and the Ghost is surprised they both continue this talk. "Don't mistake my visit for socializing."

"Am I endangering your future endeavors again? Am I off the road and too late again?"

Jon stares into nothingness for six long breaths, lingering, the Ghost counts them.

"No." He finally says. "For now it isn't you. Not quite. I just come to make sure you do not forget some things."

The ghost clenches the knife in his hand.

"You will be on the water soon. Make sure you don't fall. I have seen you jump, once, but right now, I know you don't consider jumping again. You will make it. It is only the first step. And if she asks you, just tell her the truth."

Nonsense after nonsense, images after images, and they all belong to some tangled strain of future possibilities the Ghost knows nothing about.

"I bet," The Ghost weights the words on his tongue, not sure why he still talks. "We had a talk like this often in your head."

"A few times," Jon admits. " I come to visit you here in every timeline. It doesn't matter. You want to know how it usually goes. What you ask and what I answer."

The Ghost huffs. He is surprised that he is capable of this amused reaction. "You tricked me once, I will not fall for it again."

He doesn't see The Ghost or the room he is in anymore. Gone again to the future, or whatever existence, the Ghost doesn't want to even try and understand and is far from caring. After all, even with intentions that aren't malicious towards him, the long term game of manipulating time is something that affects the whole world. A great responsibility, maybe a burden but a strong power to behold.

The Ghost is weary about big power. He is no leader and he doesn't want to be.

Jon's voice is forlorn in the space in between the barricaded window and the Ghost's body alone in the darkness. "Don't worry, Thomas. The flames won't eat you again. At least not for a while. But keep an eye out for lightning strikes."

The Ghost chooses to ignore the shadow moving behind him. All he sees is a dim frame moving, standing up.

"I will shoot you now. I am sick of your prophecies."

Jon doesn't answer.

Better that way, most likely.

The Ghost of Thomas leans back.

He could pursue and hunt Jon. He could at least attempt. But that is wasted energy. Jon knows where they both move and just as fog dissolves, this bird can outmaneuver most storm clouds easily.

Jon is gone. The Ghost of Thomas accepts that with a grudge. He should have proven the red-eyed bastard wrong and shot him. Some lingering warmth is the only indication he did sit behind the Ghost.

* * *

Jon is right. Naturally.

The boat is stolen, half camouflaged with makeshift colors, and it is big enough to transport them over a part of the sea, at least.

The Ghost spends the most time on board in a light sleep. He doesn't think about jumping off. Jon is right about that too.

The barriers sink low in his head, just like the slick boat sinks through the waves, and his dreams embrace him with the same foggy imagery that they always hold. The dreams ripple with force, and sometimes he wakes up hastily chest and ribcage burning.

As fast as the images sweep by, he repeats to himself what he knows, what he is, what he does.

_I am Thomas_, the lips say with a muted tongue, soundless for anyone but himself beneath the sound of an engine whipping the boat through the water.

** _Just Thomas?_ **

_Just that. _ _I am the Fogland Soldier on the poster and in the hushed voices._  
_I am the Ghost. I kill silver with metal that has the same glint and color as their blood.  
_

It starts to rain when the Ghost leans over the edge of the metal banister and looks at a small stripe of shore. The water lies in a thin layer over their clothes and soaks into their skin. It drowns their lips and seals them. He doesn't feel the cold. He never does.

"Welcome to Tuck, fogland soldier," the Lakelander answers.

The Ghost doesn't care for welcomes. Or farewells. He simply clenches the metal below his fingers and waits.


	11. The Maws Of Names

_'Names are given as gifts, as a reminder, or honor. Names can be given as curses. And names can be forgotten until another tongue speaks them loud and reawakens them.'_

* * *

They don't restrain him, but they as well might. The people that have brought him here have turned from guards protecting him to guards protecting the world from him the second they step on the beach. It is subtle. But he knows the language of a fighter, the alarm, the edge. The expectation.

The Ghost does not struggle. He only steps into the sand, feet soft, sinking deep. The water doesn't cleanse him, it never does, It did not cleanse and set him free as he jumped from the bridge. It won't do so now. The smell of salt in his nostrils gets washed away and replaced, drowned by the raindrops from the sky.

Water and Fire. Killing him again and again. Surrounding him while pondering and while stepping onto shores.

He walks in a straight line between guns for three paces along the beach before stopping. His ribcage blisters and screams underneath his clothes. The pain is still excruciating, but it keeps him sharp, it keeps him grounded. The guns are pointed at him. He takes one more step. He counts the way he breathes and the world responds in a shower of movement just as tiny as the raindrops, but just as heavy, boots that move around him ever so slightly but in a well ordered, drilled manner.

_Marching, feet in a line, a distant shout, and guns at the ready, and there's sweat on his brow, and he hates himself for it but he can't stop thinking-_

His muscles between the broken bones twitch, hardening on his face with the mist of water flowing over his ruined clothes. Rain, wind, mist, and the world clogged, surrounded by something grey. Seasons turn by and days loose meaning for the Ghost often. The wandering has done that. And whatever lies buried and tries to break free from his past.

His eyes catch below the buildings that stand between the soft curve of hills. He can recognize the shapes. The soldier and the fighter pump and pulse the recognition into his head. Barracks, a dock, a hangar.

One of the men that have brought him here gives his shoulder a low touch to keep him walking.

He stares straightforward. It would be in vain to hide his face. He doesn't lower his head.

He stares at the guns, the faces behind them, but they blur into a mass of dead soldiers and fighters left behind.

_What keeps a good man from dying? Nothing, all dead, dead, the good die first, and everything keeps dying, why does everything keep dying- the blood is too hot, and the sounds are ripping his eardrums apart if he could scream he would but he never can and so he doesn't-_

Pain still blooms in wild tangled vines around his chest. It sets his head straight. The group departs deeper into the island. He keeps his head up and his hands in front of his body, for everyone to see. Surrendering, for now. If he didn't surrender, that would not be buying anyone's trust.

A weapon is obedient, after all.

And he is so used to the indifference that nothing in their eyes could hurt him studying his face.

There are few things left in this world that can hurt the Ghost, move him. One is recognition. And all of these people are strangers.

He gets shoved inside a small room. It's too bright and stale, and he might as well be chained to the chair. The Ghost can barely think in the small room, head pounding and racing, blood deadly hot, pain barely keeping him from shaking, and a part of wants to be in the middle of the swaying grass in the hills he observed.

Someone steps inside with the Lakelander. A moot nickname, the Ghost realizes later. Most of them are Lakelanders. But they are blurry and they stay blurry scratched out faces of people he used to fight on a valley of ash.

Norta. Lakelands. What does it matter?

_ Silver is silver and red is red, and blood is blood and it flows in rivulets and explosions, in violence from hands that wield their obedient servants, friends, their weapons that are trustworthy-_

Water drips in puddles down his jacket. Someone hands him a blanket. The Ghost looks at the fabric between his scarred , firekissed hands. A curteous question about his pain. He deflects it with a simple shake of his head.

"Trust me, he means that, he's a monster when it comes to pain," the Lakelander mutters.

The Ghost sits in silence.

A monster, what does make a monster?

_What makes a good man, Thomas?_

Loud, snapping, metal sounds, boots ripping over a corridor, a hallway filtered with guns and lights.

The Ghost still only waits. He looks at the water drops. Reflections of nothingness. They weep and waver on the ground when the door gets opened again.

"It's time to answer some questions," The Lakelander says as his farewell. As if he wants to prepare the Ghost of Thomas for what is to come. Then he stands straight to attention. "Colonel."

The Ghost whips upwards, and he stares into one good and one bad eye, a face that shares some sort of malformation left by a fight. Military man by nature, hard stone and hard hands, the Ghost knows the type.

"I was assured a dozen times we wouldn't need a cell."

There is no indifference in the Ghost. He just stares at the man that they call the Colonel. He doesn't salute. But he doesn't insult him.

"I only kill silver," The Ghost answers as if that explains anything. "And someone may say I owe you for saving my life. I would be dead if your people hadn't fished me out of the water."

Or would he be dead?

_Unable to die, always coming back, back, BACK._

"I didn't have a word in your rescue mission," the face is still hard and harsh. Unimpressed by the scars or the endurance. The air stands between them with the soaking smell of a dirty body drenched in sea and rainwater. "But you did plenty of work in the woods."

Interceptions of messages, dead soldiers, dead officers.

_Miserable weather and faces, a vengeful spirit in a stolen uniform haunting them._

"I come as an asset. I do what people tell me. Ask your questions, Colonel. If you want to put me in a cell. Just do that."

_A weeping, screaming, familiar weapon weighted in a hand, waiting for a command._

The Colonel almost seems pleased by that notion, just the smallest difference in the way he looks down at the Ghost of a boy.

The Ghost just waits for another swing, another accusation or another question.

Instead, the interrogation turns another way.

"Thomas-" The Colonel says, and for a fearful second, the maws are close. They want to snap shut. They have been waiting for many, many long days, months, painful nightmares and hours of fighting to keep them at bay.

"Just Thomas." The Ghost interrupts. The good eye watches him cautiously.

"Sir." He adds. Out of a polite and deeply embedded memory.

The sea serpent that has lurked in the shallow water waits.

Suddenly he wishes someone had chained him to a chair because he wants to leap up, fight a restrained state of mind, keep himself together, can't let the maws devour him. Through the fog, more distant memories.

For a heartbeat, there is nothing, not even air inside his lungs, or in the room, a vacuum produced by the sucking, sick motion of a dead name and a dead boy attached to it. Then he pulls himself together.

"It has changed a few times, but that one stays," the Ghost whispers. A name stays like scars, bestowed by pain.


	12. Wander In

_'Fog dissolves, but it is still hard to see through it.'_

* * *

Emotions are like a deadman's switch. They react to motionlessness and sleep, sounding an alarm and an explosion.

It has been this way since forever.

It doesn't change in the weeks recovering on Tuck. If all, it only gets worse. As dangerous as living under the nose of silver military and eyes that want to chase you is. You have room to run.

He could simply abandon men to let their hope wither and brutally die. Run from a jet and a girl with block letters. The Pulls come and they hold tight, but he could dodge and counterfeit.

Now he is trapped on an island with his own thoughts and the questions.

Colonel Farley and the Ghost have some begrudging agreements after the first interrogation in the bright room. There is no way to cover up the scars on his face. Or the past months hunting and killing silver. He holds his deadman's switch very tightly in his hands as soon as they start to reach the past.

"Just Thomas," the man repeats.

"Yes, Sir," The Ghost whispers low.

"A soldier."

"Yes, Sir," His voice is hoarse and dusty, and it's strange to realize that it sounds older and more bend than Colonel Farley's.

"A fire made that face," the older man says, and arms crossed tightly in the space between them while the Ghost just sits very silently, breath rattling in his chest.

"The flames happened before." For the first time in a long while, the Ghost's voice does not stutter because he barely uses it and it is hoarse, but because the words get stuck in the back of his throat like a hot iron someone has shoved down there. It makes him uncomfortable to hold this long discussion. "I was in the war. And the woods. Then I made my way to Archeon and tried to shoot Elara Merandus. That is all there is to know."

"And how did you decide to march into the capital and try to shoot her?" He asks, looking at him with one suspicious good eye, and one ill colored. It is locked onto him with some aquiline cautiousness.

The Ghost has told everyone his value is almost only depicted by his hand on his weapons and not by the things he used to be.

_Dead. Reborn._

_I was a son. I was a servant. I was a lover. A friend. A soldier._

_I am a Ghost._

"I am red, Sir," he answers and sits still, holding his breath a moment. Like he does before he aims like he does when he wakes up from the Pulls. His ribs ripple harshly against it, protesting, reminding him of falling, drowning. "Isn't that the only answer that counts for the purpose of our deal?"

And that is where they agree, and he gets off the hook for now. The Ghost is very aware it won't stay that way. But he takes what he can get. He doesn't lie to Colonel Farley or any of the others.

If they ask the right question, he will answer them.

He faintly remembers another blurry face from that first day. Female, with hands working over his injuries after the first interrogation. She stares at his face with her eyebrows drawn together. He sees right through her, down the sterile clean clothes.

His mind drifts and tumbles. It wallows and echoes.

It takes two weeks and she still reminds him every time that her name is Lena when his eyes don't even see her face. And he still forgets.

_I'm not one of you- I'm not one of them- No one, just a scattered reminder, ash smeared and bloody and lumping broken bones-_

And it's true. He isn't one of them. He doesn't tell Lena or anyone else that takes their demeaning time to waste breath and try to pull him into a talk. The Ghost tries to dispel anything that could mean respect, but the Lakelander has done a good enough job to spread words of the Fogland Soldier.

"Give me a task, Sir," the Ghost asks, dragging himself over the base. He follows the colonel like a slug. Maybe just because it keeps people from trying to talk to him. "Anything. I am almost completely healed and need to prove myself."

_A weapon needs to be cleaned and maintained, but it also needs to be fired with clarity and aim. What else is an intrument of death good for?_

The sweat on his brow and the limp proves him a liar. And Colonel Farley doesn't fall for it. Even with that begrudging agreement. He dismisses the Ghost. He is almost out of patience for his vexing attempts.

When you sleep in a barrack, in a bunk, on an island, you can never be alone. Not for long. As the Pulls drag him underwater, snickering animals finding him, eating his toes in a tickling sensation and slinging their tendrils unto him, he forces himself not to make any kind of sound. A tongue pressed against the back of teeth, nostrils vibrating heavy.

_Strange how blood tastes. It filters through his teeth and floods his tongue, an iron, heavy taste. It fills his nostrils, snorting, panting, struggling-_

When the Pulls find him in the bunk, the ghost forces his body up as silently as he can. No chains, no cell. But also no clearance. And no weapons.

He understands the sentiment. Colonel Farley and whoever else is in charge wouldn't take the risk. And why would an injured man need a knife and a gun anyway?

Still. Something in the ghost wants to lash out and screech when his hand folds under the empty space on his body, then back under his blanket. Because the knife is not there. No trustful elongation of his fingers lingering and longing to be used.

He can only flee between empty barracks and hills in silent moments like this, feet digging into the sandy shore. The last traveling times, the Lakelander has found him. Now, people are more manifold in their duty to keep an eye on him. There are at least one or two soldiers around. They know him by now, lurking around in the early moments of the grey dawn, staring at the water.

The sea is filled with pinches of green and black in thunderous waves or soft splashes. One time, parts are polluted by the grimy dark sleaze that leaks out of an engine. Sometimes you can watch fish, swift little black shadows. They chase and flee, stirred into action by the moving waves, darting between the ships. The fish, at least have room to escape if they ever feel trapped. A headstart for the ghost.

Seagulls are often visitors, circling along and screeching in their greedy search for spoils. The seagulls too can leave wherever they want to go.

The wind cracks his body like kicks. The ribs hurt and burn.

He simply stands between a few swaying blades of plants overgrowing the terrain. Behind him, something rumbles in the belly of the hangar, intestines of engines swirling with power.

He keeps his place. The wind pushes so heavy now it makes breathing hard. It overlaps any early sound of voices yelling commands.

At first, his fingers go numb, his ears tingle.

With one scarred hand he pushes the grey jacket tightly around his shoulders. The sky is as milky slick as dead eyes.

_Dead eyes eaten by the birds, beaks hacking, soft vulnerable flesh- dead eyes, a shot splintering through skin and bones- dead eyes, froth on a mouth-dead eyes, only dead eyes, and they watch, they watch even if they don't see anything. _

The world loses scents, salt and sand fill his senses, everything turns less sharp.

He squints. Then it starts to creep in his healing bones. He feels every fading bruise, he feels the muscles buckle.

Today, it seems, is not a day in his favor.

He feels weak. His whole body suddenly is not advised by pain but overpowered.

He stares for too many pulsing beats of his blood.

His fingers twitch, his face falls. Then his body gets pushed back against the heavy wind. A whipcrack of his body falling. Flashes of pain drag over his ribcage like sharp nails.

He doesn't expect anyone to notice. Or help. He just lies in the soot, the sand has spread right into his mouth.

The sounds of the island seem far away. Numb nerves and dead cold skin, the Ghost starts to crawl a step, trying to stand up.

One of the figures he has watched as they have watched him wander a bit has moved. Tall, short shaved hair, strong grabbing hand lifting him up.

The Ghost has a wiry, coiling build by now, grated by hunger and pain, surviving, but he remembers enough about war to know most soldiers will aways be better fed and excessively better in shape than him.

His heart is pulsing through his veins heavy.

"I can walk," The ghost feels the touch on his shoulder too heavy. It is a genuine, straightforward grip. He looks back, up, to the face.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." The Ghost answers.

"Barrow-" A voice shouts through the stormwind and the howling cacophony.

That is a name that catches the Ghost's interest.


End file.
